Thousands of mourners in southern Lebanon on Friday attended a funeral for nearly 100 Lebanese killed last year during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
It was the largest mass burial ceremony in Lebanon since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire three months ago. It followed last week’s burial of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s former leader, and his top aide in Beirut attended by tens of thousands.
The emotional ceremony was organized to mark the return of the bodies of those killed to their hometown of Aitaroun, one of the largest villages in southern Lebanon, which was devastated during the war. The 95 bodies had been temporarily buried elsewhere and were exhumed for the reburial.
Israeli forces left the border village in early February, allowing thousands of residents to return.
The mourners, some visiting from nearby villages, threw flowers and sprayed rose water on the trucks carrying the coffins of the 95 killed in the war. Five others killed were still missing and organizers said they are still working to find and identify their remains.
At least 51 reburied in the village cemetery were Hezbollah fighters killed in Aitaroun or in other southern villages. Relatives raised posters of those killed, some as young as 18, parading them through the streets of Aitaroun, lined with destroyed buildings and damaged fruit orchards. The killed also included five children, 16 women and 10 civil defense rescuers.
“My heart is broken,” said Fatima Hejazi, 36, who came to rebury her younger brother Ali, 29. “Look at all these young men. It is a big loss. The country lost its young men. But thankfully they were killed on the path of resistance, and they continued until the end and didn’t surrender.”
Hezbollah is believed to have lost hundreds of fighters since Israel escalated its war with the Lebanese militant group in late September. The exact number of fighters killed has not yet been declared by the group, which had said until September that more than 500 fighters were killed in a year of low-simmering war.
Prime minister calls for full Israeli withdrawal
Separately on Friday, Lebanon’s new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, toured areas near the border with Israel that suffered wide destruction during the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. He called for a full Israeli withdrawal and promised residents of border villages a safe return to their homes and reconstruction.
“We promise you a safe return to your homes as soon as possible,” Salam said, speaking in the southern port city of Tyre while meeting residents of the border village of Dheira.
Salam didn’t attend the mass funeral in Aitaroun.
His visit came only two days after his government won a vote of confidence in parliament. Members of Hezbollah’s bloc voted in favor of the new administration’s policy statement that said only the national army has the right to defend the country in case of war. The statement was a blow to the militant arm of the group that has kept its weapons for decades saying it is necessary to defend Lebanon against Israel.
Israel withdrew its troops from much of the border area earlier this month, but left five outposts inside Lebanon in what Lebanese officials called a violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that came into effect on Nov. 27.
Salam said his government is garnering Arab and international support “to force the enemy to withdraw from our occupied lands and the so-called five points.”
Official burials
In the Aitaroun mass funeral, Hezbollah and many of its supporters struck a defiant tone.
“Be prepared to welcome the heroes,” one of the organizers shouted from the podium, rousing the crowd to greet the coffins carried on four trucks as they drove into the village. A former Hezbollah-allied minister, Ibrahim Bairam, told the crowd that the militant group has suffered but is not down. The group is backing the government, he said, but called on it to act independently.
Among the dead was a 10-month-old girl killed in an Oct. 14 Israeli airstrike on a residential building that killed 23 people, all of them displaced from Aitaroun.
At least 32 of those reburied Friday were killed in two of the deadliest Israeli attacks in Ain el-Delb in southern Lebanon and Aito, in the country’s Christian heartland. They had all been displaced from Aitaroun.
The ceremony was attended by Iranian, Iraqi and Yemeni delegations.
Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced. Over 100,000 have not yet been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Charges over attack on UNIFIL
During his tour, Salam also visited the southern cities of Marjayoun and Nabatiyeh and praised the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, that has been deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978.
In mid-February, UNIFIL’s outgoing deputy commander was injured when protesters attacked a convoy taking peacekeepers to the Beirut airport.
On Friday, three judicial officials told The Associated Press that 26 people have been charged in the attack on UNIFIL, with only five in detention. The suspects were charged with terrorism, undermining state authority, robbery and forming a gang to carry out evil acts, the judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
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Mroue reported from Beirut.
